3SEW AKKANGEISIENT Ol" CHRYSANTHEMUMS. 75 



aftenvards, aH over their leaves, with a tine rose watering-pan, 

 lightly as a fine slight shower, as often as their foliage flags, quail- 

 ing to the beams of a powerful sun, which will sometimes be three 

 times a clay in the hottest weather. This will cpiickly re-erect 

 their drooping leaves, witliout scorching or blistering them, and 

 cause these uncommonly slow-gi'owing plants to advance with a 

 degree of eompai-ative rapidity that is as pleasing as it is surpri- 

 sing, and their leaves will become twice as large as when treated 

 in the usual way. The size of this foliage, too, as in bulbous and 

 ■most other plants, will indicate the increase of size also in the 

 ■expected but as yet invisible flowers ; although in Succulentse, 

 and more especially in i^icoidene, I should expect the reverse. 



Thus treated, these conspicuous plants will reach the height of 

 3 or 4 ft. in the smaller sorts, and that of 7 and 8 at least in the 

 tallest kinds, terminating in abundant and most beautiful flowers, 

 many of which will far suipass 5 in. in expansion, and with almos>t 

 every colour, except deep scarlet and the tints of blue. 



But other aspects than the south or west, and even the open 

 borders in very favourable seasons, will suit the greatei- part of 

 these plants near London tolerably well, and enable them to open 

 their flowers, though much later and smaller than those against a 

 south-a.spected widl, where they will expand every season ; and, if 

 properly blended as to colour, at the middle and end of every 

 November, they are capable of making a more showy and magni- 

 ficent appearance of flowery beauty, richness, and elegance, than 

 i ever beheld in am' other gi'oup. The duration of their hardy 

 flowers is likewise gi-eatei* than that of other autumnal plants, both 

 as to individual blossoms, and in the lateral sncccssional ones, and 

 even when cut for bouquets and placed in vessels of water ; one 

 l)lant of the old i)uii)le, in my garden, having had flowers from the 

 beginning of November last, to the second week in the present 

 January. But the earlier they can be made to come into blossom, 

 by opon-air treatment (for all forcing in-etrievably weakens them), 

 tho better, and the longer will be their duration, and the finer thei,,. 

 soft but agreeable chamomile scent. 



Notwithstanding tiiese deserved eulogies, Chinese chrysanthe- 

 mums have not hiUiurto ranked with the true flowers of the florist, 

 because, however well fonned, in many of the varieties, they are 

 iill, save the Gold-bordered Red, of self or uniform colours ; and 



